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The Web @ Work / Ford Motor Co.

A weekly case study

Updated Oct. 16, 2000 12:26 a.m. ET

Controlling Damage:Ford Motor Co.
, enmeshed in one of the worst product recalls to hit the automotive industry, is turning to the Web to protect its name. Since August, when Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. announced a recall of 6.5 million tires, on the Ford Explorer, Ford has blasted the Web with a simple banner ad that it has used on about 200 Web sites, with the potential to reach as many as 564 million people. Ford has previously used the Web to launch products, but never to this extent. As a result, Ford's recall advertisement is now the No. 1 ad on the Internet, and Ford has jumped to the 25th largest online advertiser, ranked by so-called impressions or potential viewers, according to Jupiter Media Metrix Inc., New York. That's up from its July rank of a distant 325. Media Metrix executives note Ford has taken online advertising to new heights by tapping the Web's ability to act as a damage-control vehicle.

Official News Here: "For official Ford News on the Firestone recall, click here," says the ad, running above Ford's flowing script logo. With a mouse click, browsers would then be linked to Ford's recall site within the ford.com home page (www.ford.com ). The recall site includes such information as which three tire models are included in the recall, which tires could be used to replace them, and authorized replacement dealers. It also includes Ford's press releases and a statement from Chief Executive Officer Jacques Nasser assuring owners that "there are two things that we never take lightly: Your safety and your trust."

Ford's strategy was first to get mass reach from major Internet service providers and Web sites, including
America Online Inc.,
its CompuServe division, and
Microsoft Corp.'s
MSN Internet service. Next it hit the news sites, including those of New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile those papers were running almost daily stories on the recall, including those questioning the stability of the Explorer and whether Ford and Firestone, a unit of Japan's
Bridgestone Corp.
, withheld important safety information from the public. Ford then bought space on networks of smaller Web sites and leveraged existing online partnerships, such as with the women-oriented iVillage.com and youth hangout bolt.com. With Carpoint, in which it owns about a 25% stake, it created pop-up warnings for Carpoint's registered Explorer owners who would have been affected by the recalled tires.

100% Online: Traffic to ford.com has jumped to more than 1.4 million in August from 900,000 visitors in July, the most recent figures available from Media Metrix. Ford is so pleased with its Internet success that it continues to increase the Internet portion of the budget as a percentage of the total campaign. Typically Internet ads comprise 4% to 5% of a typical product campaign, but for Ford's recall efforts, that has jumped to 10%, says a Ford spokeswoman. Its limited television advertising, two spots with Mr. Nasser, stopped in early September and it is now planning to pull its full-page newspaper ads, which have been running weekly in 125 daily newspapers as well as in 35 or so targeted ethnic papers.

"Our budget will go 100% online," says Christine Toth, communications supervisor at Ford's longtime ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, a unit of
WPP Group
. Online results have been average, with .13% of the potential audience clicking on the ad to jump to Ford's Web site. Still, that number means 735,000 users have clicked through.

"So far we feel like it's been somewhat successful," says Ms. Toth.

Removing Tarnish: Whether the online campaign, which Jupiter estimates cost $3.5 million, has helped Ford's overall image is difficult to track, but it probably hasn't harmed it. Charlie Buchwalter, vice president of media research for Jupiter's AdRelevance division, says the ad "gives a very strong signal that this company does not want to sweep this under the rug."